elaine de frey sat at ease — at bodily ease — at any rate — in a low wicker chair placed under the shade of a group of cedars in the heart of a stately spacious garden that had almost made up its mind to be a park. the shallow stone basin of an old fountain, on whose wide ledge a leaden-moulded otter for ever preyed on a leaden salmon, filled a conspicuous place in the immediate foreground. around its rim ran an inscription in latin, warning mortal man that time flows as swiftly as water and exhorting him to make the most of his hours; after which piece of jacobean moralising it set itself shamelessly to beguile all who might pass that way into an abandonment of contemplative repose. on all sides of it a stretch of smooth turf spread away, broken up here and there by groups of dwarfish chestnut and mulberry trees, whose leaves and branches cast a laced pattern of shade beneath them. on one side the lawn sloped gently down to a small lake, whereon floated a quartette of swans, their movements suggestive of a certain mournful listlessness, as though a weary dignity of caste held them back from the joyous bustling life of the lesser waterfowl. elaine liked to imagine that they reembodied the souls of unhappy boys who had been forced by family interests to become high ecclesiastical dignitaries and had grown prematurely right reverend. a low stone balustrade fenced part of the shore of the lake, making a miniature terrace above its level, and here roses grew in a rich multitude. other rose bushes, carefully pruned and tended, formed little oases of colour and perfume amid the restful green of the sward, and in the distance the eye caught the variegated blaze of a many-hued hedge of rhododendron. with these favoured exceptions flowers were hard to find in this well-ordered garden; the misguided tyranny of staring geranium beds and beflowered archways leading to nowhere, so dear to the suburban gardener, found no expression here. magnificent amherst pheasants, whose plumage challenged and almost shamed the peacock on his own ground, stepped to and fro over the emerald turf with the assured self-conscious pride of reigning sultans. it was a garden where summer seemed a part-proprietor rather than a hurried visitor.
by the side of elaine’s chair under the shadow of the cedars a wicker table was set out with the paraphernalia of afternoon tea. on some cushions at her feet reclined courtenay youghal, smoothly preened and youthfully elegant, the personification of decorative repose; equally decorative, but with the showy restlessness of a dragonfly, comus disported his flannelled person over a considerable span of the available foreground.
the intimacy existing between the two young men had suffered no immediate dislocation from the circumstance that they were tacitly paying court to the same lady. it was an intimacy founded not in the least on friendship or community of tastes and ideas, but owed its existence to the fact that each was amused and interested by the other. youghal found comus, for the time being at any rate, just as amusing and interesting as a rival for elaine’s favour as he had been in the role of scapegrace boy-about-town; comus for his part did not wish to lose touch with youghal, who among other attractions possessed the recommendation of being under the ban of comus’s mother. she disapproved, it is true, of a great many of her son’s friends and associates, but this particular one was a special and persistent source of irritation to her from the fact that he figured prominently and more or less successfully in the public life of the day. there was something peculiarly exasperating in reading a brilliant and incisive attack on the government’s rash handling of public expenditure delivered by a young man who encouraged her son in every imaginable extravagance. the actual extent of youghal’s influence over the boy was of the slightest; comus was quite capable of deriving encouragement to rash outlay and frivolous conversation from an anchorite or an east-end parson if he had been thrown into close companionship with such an individual. francesca, however, exercised a mother’s privilege in assuming her son’s bachelor associates to be industrious in labouring to achieve his undoing. therefore the young politician was a source of unconcealed annoyance to her, and in the same degree as she expressed her disapproval of him comus was careful to maintain and parade the intimacy. its existence, or rather its continued existence, was one of the things that faintly puzzled the young lady whose sought-for favour might have been expected to furnish an occasion for its rapid dissolution.
with two suitors, one of whom at least she found markedly attractive, courting her at the same moment, elaine should have had reasonable cause for being on good terms with the world, and with herself in particular. happiness was not, however, at this auspicious moment, her dominant mood. the grave calm of her face masked as usual a certain degree of grave perturbation. a succession of well-meaning governesses and a plentiful supply of moralising aunts on both sides of her family, had impressed on her young mind the theoretical fact that wealth is a great responsibility. the consciousness of her responsibility set her continually wondering, not as to her own fitness to discharge her “stewardship,” but as to the motives and merits of people with whom she came in contact. the knowledge that there was so much in the world that she could buy, invited speculation as to how much there was that was worth buying. gradually she had come to regard her mind as a sort of appeal court before whose secret sittings were examined and judged the motives and actions, the motives especially, of the world in general. in her schoolroom days she had sat in conscientious judgment on the motives that guided or misguided charles and cromwell and monck, wallenstein and savonarola. in her present stage she was equally occupied in examining the political sincerity of the secretary for foreign affairs, the good-faith of a honey-tongued but possibly loyal-hearted waiting-maid, and the disinterestedness of a whole circle of indulgent and flattering acquaintances. even more absorbing, and in her eyes, more urgently necessary, was the task of dissecting and appraising the characters of the two young men who were favouring her with their attentions. and herein lay cause for much thinking and some perturbation. youghal, for example, might have baffled a more experienced observer of human nature. elaine was too clever to confound his dandyism with foppishness or self-advertisement. he admired his own toilet effect in a mirror from a genuine sense of pleasure in a thing good to look upon, just as he would feel a sensuous appreciation of the sight of a well-bred, well-matched, well-turned-out pair of horses. behind his careful political flippancy and cynicism one might also detect a certain careless sincerity, which would probably in the long run save him from moderate success, and turn him into one of the brilliant failures of his day. beyond this it was difficult to form an exact appreciation of courtenay youghal, and elaine, who liked to have her impressions distinctly labelled and pigeon-holed, was perpetually scrutinising the outer surface of his characteristics and utterances, like a baffled art critic vainly searching beneath the varnish and scratches of a doubtfully assigned picture for an enlightening signature. the young man added to her perplexities by his deliberate policy of never trying to show himself in a favourable light even when most anxious to impart a favourable impression. he preferred that people should hunt for his good qualities, and merely took very good care that as far as possible they should never draw blank; even in the matter of selfishness, which was the anchor-sheet of his existence, he contrived to be noted, and justly noted, for doing remarkably unselfish things. as a ruler he would have been reasonably popular; as a husband he would probably be unendurable.
comus was to a certain extent as great a mystification as youghal, but here elaine was herself responsible for some of the perplexity which enshrouded his character in her eyes. she had taken more than a passing fancy for the boy — for the boy as he might be, that was to say — and she was desperately unwilling to see him and appraise him as he really was. thus the mental court of appeal was constantly engaged in examining witnesses as to character, most of whom signally failed to give any testimony which would support the favourable judgment which the tribunal was so anxious to arrive at. a woman with wider experience of the world’s ways and shortcomings would probably have contented herself with an endeavour to find out whether her liking for the boy outweighed her dislike of his characteristics; elaine took her judgments too seriously to approach the matter from such a simple and convenient standpoint. the fact that she was much more than half in love with comus made it dreadfully important that she should discover him to have a lovable soul, and comus, it must be confessed, did little to help forward the discovery.
“at any rate he is honest,” she would observe to herself, after some outspoken admission of unprincipled conduct on his part, and then she would ruefully recall certain episodes in which he had figured, from which honesty had been conspicuously absent. what she tried to label honesty in his candour was probably only a cynical defiance of the laws of right and wrong.
“you look more than usually thoughtful this afternoon,” said comus to her, “as if you had invented this summer day and were trying to think out improvements.”
“if i had the power to create improvements anywhere i think i should begin with you,” retorted elaine.
“i’m sure it’s much better to leave me as i am,” protested comus; “you’re like a relative of mine up in argyllshire, who spends his time producing improved breeds of sheep and pigs and chickens. so patronising and irritating to the almighty i should think, to go about putting superior finishing touches to creation.”
elaine frowned, and then laughed, and finally gave a little sigh.
“it’s not easy to talk sense to you,” she said.
“whatever else you take in hand,” said youghal, “you must never improve this garden. it’s what our idea of heaven might be like if the jews hadn’t invented one for us on totally different lines. it’s dreadful that we should accept them as the impresarios of our religious dreamland instead of the greeks.”
“you are not very fond of the jews,” said elaine.
“i’ve travelled and lived a good deal in eastern europe,” said youghal.
“it seems largely a question of geography,” said elaine; “in england no one really is anti-semitic.”
youghal shook his head. “i know a great many jews who are.”
servants had quietly, almost reverently, placed tea and its accessories on the wicker table, and quietly receded from the landscape. elaine sat like a grave young goddess about to dispense some mysterious potion to her devotees. her mind was still sitting in judgment on the jewish question.
comus scrambled to his feet.
“it’s too hot for tea,” he said; “i shall go and feed the swans.”
and he walked off with a little silver basket-dish containing brown bread-and-butter.
elaine laughed quietly.
“it’s so like comus,” she said, “to go off with our one dish of bread-and-butter.”
youghal chuckled responsively. it was an undoubted opportunity for him to put in some disparaging criticism of comus, and elaine sat alert in readiness to judge the critic and reserve judgment on the criticised.
“his selfishness is splendid but absolutely futile,” said youghal; “now my selfishness is commonplace, but always thoroughly practical and calculated. he will have great difficulty in getting the swans to accept his offering, and he incurs the odium of reducing us to a bread-and-butterless condition. incidentally he will get very hot.”
elaine again had the sense of being thoroughly baffled. if youghal had said anything unkind it was about himself.
“if my cousin suzette had been here,” she observed, with the shadow of a malicious smile on her lips, “i believe she would have gone into a flood of tears at the loss of her bread-and-butter, and comus would have figured ever after in her mind as something black and destroying and hateful. in fact i don’t really know why we took our loss so unprotestingly.”
“for two reasons,” said youghal; “you are rather fond of comus. and i— am not very fond of bread-and-butter.”
the jesting remark brought a throb of pleasure to elaine’s heart. she had known full well that she cared for comus, but now that courtenay youghal had openly proclaimed the fact as something unchallenged and understood matters seemed placed at once on a more advanced footing. the warm sunlit garden grew suddenly into a heaven that held the secret of eternal happiness. youth and comeliness would always walk here, under the low-boughed mulberry trees, as unchanging as the leaden otter that for ever preyed on the leaden salmon on the edge of the old fountain, and somehow the lovers would always wear the aspect of herself and the boy who was talking to the four white swans by the water steps. youghal was right; this was the real heaven of one’s dreams and longings, immeasurably removed from that rue de la paix paradise about which one professed utterly insincere hankerings in places of public worship. elaine drank her tea in a happy silence; besides being a brilliant talker youghal understood the rarer art of being a non-talker on occasion.
comus came back across the grass swinging the empty basket-dish in his hand.
“swans were very pleased,” he cried, gaily, “and said they hoped i would keep the bread-and-butter dish as a souvenir of a happy tea-party. i may really have it, mayn’t i?” he continued in an anxious voice; “it will do to keep studs and things in. you don’t want it.”
“it’s got the family crest on it,” said elaine. some of the happiness had died out of her eyes.
“i’ll have that scratched off and my own put on,” said comus.
“it’s been in the family for generations,” protested elaine, who did not share comus’s view that because you were rich your lesser possessions could have no value in your eyes.
“i want it dreadfully,” said comus, sulkily, “and you’ve heaps of other things to put bread-and-butter in.”
for the moment he was possessed by an overmastering desire to keep the dish at all costs; a look of greedy determination dominated his face, and he had not for an instant relaxed his grip of the coveted object.
elaine was genuinely angry by this time, and was busily telling herself that it was absurd to be put out over such a trifle; at the same moment a sense of justice was telling her that comus was displaying a good deal of rather shabby selfishness. and somehow her chief anxiety at the moment was to keep courtenay youghal from seeing that she was angry.
“i know you don’t really want it, so i’m going to keep it,” persisted comus.
“it’s too hot to argue,” said elaine.
“happy mistress of your destinies,” laughed youghal; “you can suit your disputations to the desired time and temperature. i have to go and argue, or what is worse, listen to other people’s arguments, in a hot and doctored atmosphere suitable to an invalid lizard.”
“you haven’t got to argue about a bread-and-butter dish,” said elaine.
“chiefly about bread-and-butter,” said youghal; “our great preoccupation is other people’s bread-and-butter. they earn or produce the material, but we busy ourselves with making rules how it shall be cut up, and the size of the slices, and how much butter shall go on how much bread. that is what is called legislation. if we could only make rules as to how the bread-and-butter should be digested we should be quite happy.”
elaine had been brought up to regard parliaments as something to be treated with cheerful solemnity, like illness or family reunions. youghal’s flippant disparagement of the career in which he was involved did not, however, jar on her susceptibilities. she knew him to be not only a lively and effective debater but an industrious worker on committees. if he made light of his labours, at least he afforded no one else a loophole for doing so. and certainly, the parliamentary atmosphere was not inviting on this hot afternoon.
“when must you go?” she asked, sympathetically.
youghal looked ruefully at his watch. before he could answer, a cheerful hoot came through the air, as of an owl joyously challenging the sunlight with a foreboding of the coming night. he sprang laughing to his feet.
“listen! my summons back to my galley,” he cried. “the gods have given me an hour in this enchanted garden, so i must not complain.”
then in a lower voice he almost whispered, “it’s the persian debate to-night,”
it was the one hint he had given in the midst of his talking and laughing that he was really keenly enthralled in the work that lay before him. it was the one little intimate touch that gave elaine the knowledge that he cared for her opinion of his work.
comus, who had emptied his cigarette-case, became suddenly clamorous at the prospect of being temporarily stranded without a smoke. youghal took the last remaining cigarette from his own case and gravely bisected it.
“friendship could go no further,” he observed, as he gave one-half to the doubtfully appeased comus, and lit the other himself.
“there are heaps more in the hall,” said elaine.
“it was only done for the saint martin of tours effect,” said youghal; “i hate smoking when i’m rushing through the air. good-bye.”
the departing galley-slave stepped forth into the sunlight, radiant and confident. a few minutes later elaine could see glimpses of his white car as it rushed past the rhododendron bushes. he woos best who leaves first, particularly if he goes forth to battle or the semblance of battle.
somehow elaine’s garden of eternal youth had already become clouded in its imagery. the girl-figure who walked in it was still distinctly and unchangingly herself, but her companion was more blurred and undefined, as a picture that has been superimposed on another.
youghal sped townward well satisfied with himself. to-morrow, he reflected, elaine would read his speech in her morning paper, and he knew in advance that it was not going to be one of his worst efforts. he knew almost exactly where the punctuations of laughter and applause would burst in, he knew that nimble fingers in the press gallery would be taking down each gibe and argument as he flung it at the impassive minister confronting him, and that the fair lady of his desire would be able to judge what manner of young man this was who spent his afternoon in her garden, lazily chaffing himself and his world.
and he further reflected, with an amused chuckle, that she would be vividly reminded of comus for days to come, when she took her afternoon tea, and saw the bread-and-butter reposing in an unaccustomed dish.
